A revelatory journey through four moments in Earth’s deep past, and their lessons for our future.
The epic stories of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year history are written in strata―ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping landscapes around the world. In this debut work, science writer Laura Poppick decodes strata to lead us on a journey through four global transformations that made our lives on Earth possible: the first accumulations of oxygen in the atmosphere; the deep freezes of "Snowball Earth"; the rise of mud on land and accompanying proliferation of plants; and the dinosaurs’ reign on a hothouse planet
Poppick introduces us to the researchers who have devoted their careers to understanding the events of deep time, including the world’s leading stegosaur scientist. She travels to sites as various as a Minnesotan iron mine that runs half a mile deep and a corner of the Australian Outback where glacial deposits date from the coldest times on Earth. Ultimately, she demonstrates that the planet’s oceans, continents, atmosphere, life, and ice have always conspired to bring stability to Earth, even if we are only just beginning to understand how these different facets interact.
A work in the tradition of John McPhee, Strata allows us to observe how the planet has responded to past periods of environmental upheaval, and shows how Earth’s ancient narratives could hold lessons for our present and future.
"Strata, like its subject, is deep and richly layered with stories―of the planet, and of the people doggedly trying to decipher the tales locked within its rocks. It left me with a profound appreciation of our world, and the sheer amount of history upon which we stand."
― Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of An Immense World
"Rock has never felt more alive, nor deep time more current, than in Laura Poppick’s absorbing, illuminating Strata…This book is an indispensable guide to the dynamic stories our planet writes in stone."
― Ben Goldfarb, award-winning author of Crossings and Eager
"It is one thing for a book to transform your knowledge of the world, and another for its lyricism to shape how you perceive yourself in it, too. Reading Laura Poppick’s Strata felt like being gifted a pair of magic glasses through which I could not only revel anew in our planet’s geology, but understand myself―and our warming future―within it."
― Erica Berry, author of Wolfish
"In prose as graceful and clear as a mountain stream, Laura Poppick guides us on a journey through the stone palimpsest that is Earth’s crust. . . . Thoroughly researched, lovingly crafted, and eminently approachable."
― Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth
"In Laura Poppick’s wise and wonderfully observant Strata, Earth is not a static stage but an epic told in silt, sand, and microscopic fossils. A rare and exhilarating view of our ever-changing planet."
― Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts
"Like the earth itself, Strata is a work of many layers. It’s about the deep past, about how geologists work and think, about the great changes that have taken place in geological history and the ones that lie ahead. Laura Poppick is an elegant writer and an intrepid reporter."
― Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction
"Traipsing through ancient mud flows and across the frozen rind of early Earth, and imagining the origins of our atmosphere along with its searing hot future, Laura Poppick introduces us to a cast of characters working to peel back the layers of Earth history. Threads of memoir and poetry remind us that while the work of geology is timeless, it happens on personal timescales. In the tradition of our best natural history writers, Poppick understands the true gift of geology is the perspective of deep time, where we come to understand that not even stone is indelible. Strata offers a reminder that the things which connect us, and will outlast us all, are deeper still: the iron in our blood, the oxygen we breathe, and the stories we tell."
― Rebecca Boyle, author of Our Moon
"Laura Poppick takes readers deep into the minds of geologists working to interpret the sedimentary chronicles of four critical 'moments' in Earth's past. Revealing the logic used to decode the rock record―and the reasons geologists sometimes disagree about the details of the translation―Strata is an extraordinary book."
― Marcia Bjornerud, author of Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks
"Poppick paints a fascinating word picture of dramatic change, the hallmark of billions of year of Earth’s history―all written in the layers, thick and thin, of the rock beneath our feet. Read her words and know the stories she tells provide solace that change has always been part of Earth’s DNA―but rarely at the breakneck speed at which people are altering the planet today."
― Paul Bierman, geologist and author of When the Ice Is Gone